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Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature - Fall 2004

8:224 (Fall 2004)
Professor Florence Boos

This course will trace the development of major issues, motifs, genres, and artistic preoccupations in British literature of the fin de siècle and the period directly preceding the first “world war.” In the process, we will give attention to late-Victorian poetics, early stirrings of what critics came to call “modernism,” and new forms of social criticism, utopian literature and working-class cultural expression. We will also view a number of Victorian paintings and designs, and examine Kelmscott and other fine press books and illustrations.

I will ask students registered in the course to submit weekly web postings, and prepare a 20 page critical paper or two shorter ones.

George Eliot, Daniel Deronda
George Gissing, New Grub Street
Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure
Walter Pater, Marius the Epicurean
William Morris, News from Nowhere
Thomas Collins and Vivienne Rundle, eds., Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry
Herbert Tucker, ed., A Companion to Victorian Culture
handouts for Christian Watt Papers, Celtic songs, any poetry not included in Broadview anthology, several critical articles or book chapters

Our class webpage, twist.lib.uiowa.edu/latevict, contains pages for “study questions” and “resources.” The latter contains bibliographies, art galleries, sample comps lists, links to Victorian sites and other materials (for a fuller version, see /~english/faculty/boos/links.html).
You are asked to post to the discussion page every other week, for a total of 7 roughly two page commentaries during the term. (Please number and title your postings, e. g. posting no. 1, Point-of-View in Daniel Deronda). Some of these postings, at least, should draw on outside sources (painting, book from special collections, critical article, periodical) and at least three should respond in some way to the posting of another graduate student.

You may write two essays of 12+ pages each or one longer essay of +/- 25 pages which develops a sustained discussion or critical argument. You are welcome to discuss the topic/s and its/their organization with me. If you submit two essays, one should come in before spring break; if you choose the single-paper option, you should submit a title, abstract, bibliography and rough outline directly after spring break. If you hand in a rough draft a week or more before the essay is due, I’ll give preliminary suggestions and comments. During finals week, in lieu of an official exam, we will have a class session in which students describe their respective projects.

Syllabus

January 20-22 Introduction; George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (bk. I)

January 27-29 Daniel Deronda, bks. II-V

February 3-5 Daniel Deronda, bks. VI-VIII

February 10-12 poetry: Gerard Manley Hopkins, "The Wreck of the Deutschland"